


Winter in Amaranthine

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/F, Female Friendship, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Leaving Home, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss, Male-Female Friendship, Multiple Wardens (Dragon Age), all origins become wardens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29316849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: The Wardens' companions decide to leave, and Warden-Commander Arana Mahariel cannot find a reason good enough to tell them no. Meanwhile, letters between the Warden and Leliana get lost in translation, and Arana makes it worse.
Relationships: Female Mahariel & Anders, Female Mahariel & Justice, Female Mahariel & Oghren, Female Mahariel & Sigrun, Female Mahariel & Velanna (Dragon Age), Leliana/Female Mahariel (Dragon Age), Nathaniel Howe & Female Mahariel, Sigrun/Velanna (Dragon Age)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Justice & Anders

Winter has come to Amaranthine, and Mahariel sits wrapped in a quilt Clan Zathrian sent, reading petitions. Ser Stroud, Commander of the Grey, wants more wardens sent to the Free Marches. Warden-Constable Ashara has filed a grievance against the Marquis of Serault, for refusing to hand over certain glass alembics, despite the rite of conscription. And Commander Clarel wants a transfer to Griffon Wing Keep, citing tensions amongst the mages in Weisshaupt and a renewed desire to investigate darkspawn burrowing patterns. Mahariel sighs at the last letter and sets it aside. The fire crackles comfortably. She stares so long at the embers they start to look like faces, almost someone she could have known. There is still nothing from her clan. They have settled in the Hinterlands, and Keeper Marethari took a band to the Marches too, but neither branch has written to her. She stares into the fire: perhaps that face emerging from the burning wood is her own. She blinks and the fancy is gone. Slowly, easing out on stiff limbs, she hobbles quilt-wrapped to her desk, and begins drafting her responses.   
  
“Warden-Constable Ashara, Rest assured the Order of the Grey shares your concerns on the transmission of the Taint through enchanted glass. However, the Rite may only be invoked during times of crisis, and while we understand that Thedas has been locked in perpetual crisis since the shemlem magisterium unleashed the doom upon the world--” A knock on the door interrupts her scratching, and she starts, dropping ink onto the parchment. A splotch spreads over the letter greedily.   
  
“Damn,” Mahariel mutters. She clears her throat. “What is it?” Then there was silence, and Mahariel was irritated, because she knew someone was on the other side of that door. She reached for her dagger, just in case. “ _ Who _ is it? The door’s unlocked.”   
  
The door creaks open and Anders pokes his head in the gap. Mahariel sighs, and reaches for her quill instead. Then she frowns. The air smells different, the fire crackles with an electric charge, and she peers at Anders as he fully enters the room. He is walking differently, and dressed more warmly too. She scrutinizes him as he stands over her desk. His center of gravity has changed. He is not carrying himself life a man who carries a staff, but a sword instead. Mahariel puts the quill down.   
  
“Can I help you?” she asks. “Is this about the cat? I have a lot to get to tonight, Anders. Ser Pounce has taken a liking to Oghren, and though I don’t understand it either, it seems the safest considering--”   
  
“That is not what I am here about.” Anders looks tired, and despite his proud posture, he is trembling. “I-I need to tell you something. I got a letter. And I need to go.”   
  
Mahariel steeples her fingers. “Are you asking for leave, Warden?”   
  
Anders smiles, tired. He says, “I’m asking  _ to _ leave, Warden-Commander.”   
  
Mahariel pauses and leans back in her chair. He’s different, and not just because he lacks the cat. He’s speaking differently. He looks tired. He’s dressed properly for once, in Warden robes, but with breeches underneath. She raises an eyebrow. Anders is notorious for wearing as little clothes as possible, and using magic to keep himself warm.   
  
“You don’t leave the Wardens,” Mahariel says. She should know. She would if she could, but beyond the Taint, she has responsibilities now. Amaranthine needs her, Alistair needs her, Elvhenan needs her. An elvhen arlessa cannot prevent pogroms, but she has an army now, to wage war for any shem who would dare--and as Warden-Commander of Ferelden, and international order to back her up. “I cannot give you permission, even if I would.”   
  
“Even if you would.” Anders laughs. “You know I’m quite good at escaping.”   
  
“But not at not getting caught,” Mahariel says sharply. “What is the meaning of this, Warden? You said you received a letter.”   
  
Anders closes his eyes. “My friend needs me,” he says simply. “I need to go. There is no other option. It is the only thing I can do.”   
  
Then she realizes it. Discreetly she puts her hands flat on the table, to steady herself. “Anders?” she says, trying to keep her tone level. “Where is Justice?”   
  
Anders puts his hand on his chest. “I need to go,” he says again. “There is no other option. But you deserve to know.”   
  
She sends him on his way with a shawl she knitted herself, trimmed with feathers, and an official letter stating he was in Kirkwall on Warden business, and if caught violating the laws of the city, should be handed over to Ser Stroud without harm. She added an addendum: “Warden Anders, formerly of Kinloch Hold, is not to be made Tranquil without the consent of the Commander of the Grey, and if consent is requested, the Warden must be remanded to her custody.” She packs maps of the Deep Roads, to remind him of his duty, and wishes him well. She cannot give him anymore.   
  
She does not see him off when he leaves, though she knows Oghren, Velanna, and Sigrun walk him to the port. She paces in her office, seething. Keeper Marethari named her Arana, “our anger,” aptly--she feels like all the rage of the Brecilian Forest is simmering below her skin, boiling her own flesh. She has been taught to be wary but polite to spirits, to understand that they followed their own rules--and forcing them to break their own code of conduct would break them. She has seen the damage firsthand, with the corruption Zathrian inflicted upon the Lady of the Forest. She would not call what Anders and Justice have done to themselves an abomination, no--Justice is no demon, and Anders, for all his silliness, is a deeply passionate and kind man. She knows the Avvar work with spirits, and call them their friends--but the Wardens are not under the purview of the Avvar clans nor the Dalish nations, and the Chantry holds sway. And Arana Mahariel is so very tired of the Chantry’s interference in her life.   
  
Anders leaves with Justice under his skin just before the winter seas get too choppy to risk sailing, and Mahariel resents them for leaving and for leaving her alone, because now everyone is gone--Surana, Zevran, and Brosca, to travel the world; Shale with Aeducan, to visit the last of the Cadash; Alistair to his throne and Tabris to her alienage, forever agitating for reform; Cousland to Highever and Loghain all the way to the Anderfels, where she doesn’t have to look at him; Sten to the Qun and Wynne to her spire and Morrigan only Fen’Harel knows. Eventually the cold steals in through the windows and Mahariel calms down enough to throw herself in her armchair and put her head in her hands, because she knows she is not angry entirely because he is leaving, she is angry because she has been left--by her friends, by her clan, by Leliana, and the Blight has taken everything and the Chantry the rest.   
  
She thinks to herself, I should write Leliana--but instead she goes to bed.


	2. Velanna & Sigrun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Velanna and Sigrun decide to leave, and the Warden-Commander cannot find a reason good enough to tell them no. Meanwhile, letters between the Warden and Leliana get lost in translation, and Arana makes it worse.

The next few days bring more dispatches. Alistair wants a contingent of Grey Wardens in the capital, partly for his own honor guard, partly because he wants an excuse to see Tabris, and partly because he wants a subtle way to tell Anora to fuck herself. The marriage, it seems, is not going well. Loghain requests better surveying equipment; apparently he has taken her directive to “go make himself useful” to start making maps of the Deep Roads that are safe enough for military personnel to travel. Brosca sends her an Orlesian mask with the head still attached: charming. She hefts it by the hair, grimacing, and places it back in its sack. She will dispose of it later.   
  
Finally there is a letter for her, titled “Arana” rather than Warden Mahariel, and she brings it to her nose and inhales because it still has that sweet vanilla scent. Leliana has written her. She should have written her first. She should have written her months ago, but it is so difficult to scratch her meaning on a paper rather than her back. She would prefer to whisper it, to kiss it, to stroke the loving words and worries into it. And she knows the Divine reads Leliana’s mail. Who spies on the spy? The spymaster.   
  
Mahariel stokes the fire and settles in her chair. She opens the letter and scans the first few lines, and then stops. Leliana has written to her in Orlesian, quick and hurriedly, the letters slantingly elegantly. Mahariel sets it aside and puts her head in her hands. She doesn’t know it. She doesn’t know Orlesian, why would one of the People who roams Ferelden know Orlesian? The Orlesian she has picked up over the years is sparse. Arana breathes heavily into her hands. She had thought Leliana knew. How could she not?   
  
Dimly she is aware that she is overreacting. Dimly she knows she is less angry than lonely. She should have written her first.   
  
Mahariel squats before the fire and tucks the letter, untranslated, into the grating and watches it burn silently. When it is done she walks over to her desk, pulls out a scrap of parchment, and writes in her Keeper’s best script, in the most formal Elvhen she can muster, “We don’t write Orlesian in the Dales.” She folds the paper in three. Then, taking her favorite wax, she melts it over her candle, and gently drips it onto the parchment. She takes her seal, specially enchanted by Sandal to repel everyone but Leliana, and presses it firmly onto the paper’s eam. She thinks, as the wax melts, that this is a mistake. Which? She has made so many mistakes.   
  
She coaxes the seal off the wax and smiles grimly at the griffon rampant it has left. She will send it onwards to the Grand Cathedral tomorrow, or she will burn it, and not make another mistake. But she has done so well with the Blight, so she must reckon her bad luck with her personal life.   
  
“Dread Wolf take me,” Arana says. “No one else will.”   
  
Then there is a knock at the door and she must no longer be fallible. Warden-Commander Mahariel scowls, irritated that she has been interrupted yet again. She says to the door, “What is it  _ now _ ?”   
  
Silence resounds.   
  
Mastering her temper, Mahariel crosses the room and yanks open the door. Velanna and Sigrun jump back. Velanna looks embarrassed, Sigrun smug.   
  
“Lethallin,” Mahariel says tartly. “To what do I owe the pleasure.”   
  
Velanna takes a deep breath and straightens up. She says in Dalish, “We need to talk to you, sister. I have a favor to ask of you.”   
  
Mahariel sighs. “Of course. Step inside.” She allows them in and closes the door behind them. She motions to them to sit at the cluster of armchairs by the fire. “Would you like a drink?”   
  
“No,” Velanna says.   
  
“Yes, that’d be wonderful,” Sigrun says. She rolls her eyes at Velanna meaningfully, who crosses her arms. Mahariel, amused, reaches into her desk for the good whiskey Clan Alerion sent her, and pours both her and Sigrun a glass.   
  
“Still alive,” she murmurs before she drinks. “May the Dread Wolf never catch our scent.”   
  
“Cheers,” Sigrun echoes, and, companionably, they drink as Velanna smooths out her robes anxiously. Mahariel likes them. She likes Velanna’s anger. She likes Sigrun’s resigned good cheer. She always means to draw them into her confidence, as easily as Brosca and Zevran and Surana had invaded hers, but Amaranthine is so cold in winter, and she does not like to venture from her office on nights like this--and there is always so much work to do. She is glad they have come to her--but perhaps that is the whiskey, spreading warm in her stomach, soothing her mistakes from her tangled mind.   
  
“Velanna, are you sure you don’t want anything?” she asks again.   
  
Velanna shakes her head curtly. “Not when I feel like this.” Mahariel sighs, thinking, sweet Sylaise I hope she isn’t pregnant, and I hope it’s not Anders’ or Howe’s, Howe had been sniffing around her enough, acting like she’s yet another servant whose skirts he can pull up. She knows, of course, she is not necessarily being fair: but she does not like Nathaniel, who thinks mages are whiny and elves look like clowns, so who cares? Velanna better not.   
  
Mahariel says, “And why do you feel like this, Warden?” It comes out sharper than she intends. Sigrun glances quickly at her, and Mahariel understands that as a rebuke. She smiles thinly.   
  
Velanna says, “Have you heard about the trouble in Denerim, lethallan?”   
  
“There’s always trouble in Denerim,” Arana says dismissively. “What is it now?”   
  
“Bann Tabris’ cousin was attacked again,” Velanna says. “She is unhurt and unshaken but Ferelden wants Grey Wardens he can trust in the capitol, to make sure the shem don’t rush the alienage again. I want to volunteer. I  _ am _ volunteering to go. Because I’m tired of our sisters being stolen. So, please, Warden-Commander. Arana. Let me go.”   
  
Sigrun takes Velanna’s hands and says simply, “And I’d like to go with her.”   
  
Arana blinks slowly, recollecting her thoughts. She is relieved it is not about Nathaniel or Anders either, but she has no good reason to grant the request, or deny it either. She likes these two women. She does not want to be left alone with Nathaniel and Oghren as her advisors. She could tell them no, but what would Tabris think? And Alistair? Alistair asked her personally to send men, and besides her friendship to him, she has a responsibility to Elvhenan as well. Elvhenan: her clan, Velanna and her people, Tabris and hers.   
  
Mahariel says, “I have no good reason to deny you permission.”   
Velanna visibly brightens, but Sigrun interjects, “Is that a yes?” She smiles again, and the shadows flickering from the fire deepen the tattooed caverns of her face. She looks like she is dying, but, as Sigrun herself reminds them, she is already dead. And as Wardens, they are all dying already. She has no good reason to tell them no.   
  
Arana says instead, “I did not know you were corresponding with Bann Tabris.”   
  
Velanna frowns. “I don’t. I read about it in a newsletter--you know the broadsheet Clan Lavellan began last Arlathvhen, gathering inquiries for the missing? They’ve added stories too. You don’t read it?”   
  
Mahariel wonders if her clan sent in Tamlen’s description and a desperate plea to bring him back or bury him well. She turns away from the two women and pours herself another drink. She had not had it in her to tell them the way he died. She has not written to them since the Blight. Wardens do not have families, and every Warden must leave.   
  
She says, “When will you leave? The roads will be getting difficult.”   
  
Velanna says, “Why would I take the roads?”   
  
When Velanna and Sigrun leave, they go well-packed and warmly dressed, in standard Warden cloaks to keep them from being attacked. Arana adds her own touch to their bundles: dried lavender, from a plant she grows herself, and a brusque letter to Alistair wishing him luck. She adds in a defensive amulet for Tabris and her cousin, enchanted specially by Sandal, and a shawl. When they get to the King’s Road, Sigrun posts the letter for Leliana.   
  
Arana watches them leave and thinks, I have made so many mistakes, and is careful not to drink that night.


	3. Nathaniel Howe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rendon Howe's son requests leave. Arana is glad to see him go.

Often Arana wishes she had executed him. His voice is grating, his attitude snide, and Nathaniel still walks about her keep as if he owned the place. She knows she is being irrational. He was the heir, and he is a better man than his father. But most men are better than Rendon Howe, and Ashara has little respect for a man who took so long to accept that truth.   
  
Oh, he has grown and he has changed since the battle of Vigil’s Keep. The Joining matured him. Exposure to other ways not his own--most of the world’s ways--has mellowed him and taught him to hold his tongue. Unfortunately it took the gritted patience of his forced companions--herself and Anders, Oghren and Sigrun and Velanna--to teach him, and they were not willing mentors. Perhaps Sigrun and Anders were, Ashara allows. They have more patience than her, and Justice too. But she does not like the way he spoke to Velanna. She does not like the way he spoke to her. He may not dare insult them anymore, but she remembers what he dared before.   
  
Keeper Marethari once offered her a reflection from an old Dalish oligarch, after a bad fight with her aunt: “In the gymnasium, someone may have scratched us with his nails or have collided with us and struck us a blow with his head, but, for all that, we do not mark him down as a bad character, or take offence, or view him with suspicion afterwards as one who wishes us ill. To be sure, we remain on our guard, but not in a hostile spirit or with undue suspicion; we simply try to avoid him in an amicable fashion.” She keeps that in mind, as she tries to fill the silence Anders, Velanna, and Sigrun left her. Oghren invites her to drink with them on rainy nights where no one wants to be left alone; she demures, gently. She has the dispatches, always the dispatches, and though she begins to hate her office, with those letters she is at least never alone.   
  
Leliana does not write her back. Scratch, get scratched back: Arana smarts, pacing around her office, avoiding the decisions she must make. Stroud is frustrated at her delaying sending men, but they need to build up recruitment in Ferelden first, and Dirthamen only knows what Clarel is doing at the Orlais-Tevinter border. The Chantry is displeased that she is recruiting so heavily from the Circles, and Tabris sends her a message coded in the thieves’ argot of the Red Jennies warning her that diplomatic ties are once again breaking down between Anora and Orlais. A twist that she is not expecting: that Anora and Alistair have become such a united front, and that Tabris with her baby on the way does not mind it. The issue is, as always, the Hinterlands: the Dalish clans who heeded her call have settled happily, but are having issues with pilgrims raiding their stores on the way to the Temple of Sacred Ashes--and all of this right at the Ferelden-Orlais border, of course. Anora wants a show of force, Alistair does not think they are ready, and the People are stuck in the middle.   
  
Clan Alerion still does not write her, nor does Clan Sabrae. She could use some reassurance in times like these. She should have brought books, or had them copied, now that she has the money and the power to have books copied: but risk them falling into shemlen hands? Arana throws herself into her chair. She wishes Tabris were here, or Surana, or Leliana. She can almost smell the sweat and leather and gentle softness of Leliana’s own scent, under all that steel--that sprig of Andraste’s Grace. Arana groans in frustration, fingernails sinking into her thighs, skin too sensitive. She has all this anger and nowhere to fuck it out. She casts an eye at the pile of papers on her desk, but she’s too worked up to work through the diplomatic niceties. If only it were so easy, to walk from Amaranthine to whatever grand bedroom the Divine resides, and slit her throat and carry Leliana away.   
  
Arana resolves to just go to bed and masturbate when she hears a knock on the door.   
  
“For fuck’s sake,” she says. “What is it?”    
  
Someone attempts to push the door in, rattle the doorknob, but it’s locked.   
  
Arana says helpfully, “It’s locked. Who is it?” She does not make a move to get up.   
  
She waits a beat, and just before she is about to reach for her sword, a voice says reluctantly, “It’s Nathaniel. Ser. Commander, may I speak to you?”   
  
Arana sighs. “Make it short, Warden,” she mumbles, and crosses the room to open the door. Nathaniel stands at her threshold, looking sullen and uncomfortable.   
  
“Do you need anything, Warden?” Mahariel says crisply.   
  
“May I come in?”   
  
Mahariel gestures to let him into the room. She situates herself at her desk. He stands before her, and she raises an eyebrow. “To what do I owe the...pleasure, Warden Howe?”   
  
“My apologies for disturbing you so late, Warden-Commander,” he says. This is the framework they negotiate, to keep themselves safe. He has learned to defer to an elf. Arana has accepted she cannot take it out on his hide. Still, she cannot help but think of the lives lost in the Denerim alienage--Tabris’ cousins, her cousins, sold to Tevinter as slaves once again. Her mouth thins. When will the People be free? Having Rendon Howe’s son’s life in her hands does not make any one of those captives free. Nathaniel shifts, uncomfortable on his feet. He continues, “I would like your permission to go on a recruiting mission. In Tevinter.”   
  
“Why?” Mahariel thinks, this would be an easy way to get rid of him--unless it is some sort of ploy. She wishes briefly that Aeducan was here, to tease out the plan--one of her companions who is cannier than she is. Leliana, she thinks, and stuffs that thought away.   
  
Nathaniel says, “Queen Anora has a list of those missing from the alienage. Whom our fathers sold to Tevinter. I have the ship manifest, and it will not be difficult to find out who the buyers were.” Arana flinches at that, being owned, being property, the long sea voyage and the dazed march into Minrathous on wobbly legs. Nathaniel pauses. “I humbly request your permission to use the Rite of Conscription to bring the Ferelden elves back home. They don’t necessarily need to go through the Joining if they’ve been conscripted, do they? The writ is rather vague.”   
  
He’s talking to Anora, does Alistair know, does Tabris? Loghain would have seen them on the throne, more easily controlled, and while Nathaniel has his code he is still shem, blind to his own arrogance, and thus can be humiliated. These men who think they have a natural right to an answer, to the land, to the people’s fruit of their hands--Mahariel draws herself up in her chair and tells herself not to panic. In her time as arlessa, she has not been outmaneuvered yet. She will write to Alistair and Tabris both--or she will write to Velanna, in Dalish, who can deliver a message to them. Someone is reading her mail, someone always is, it is best to keep it secure.   
  
Nathaniel says, “Here. I brought the letters. Queen Anora told the King about it, it was his idea.” He makes a face, and they both suddenly see how this could have come about: the two of them fighting furiously after a council meeting, Alistair talking about his mother, Tabris’ family, a united Ferelden, and Anora finally realizing elves are people too. She wonders why Alistair did not write her too. She has not gotten a personal letter in too long.   
  
Mahariel says, “Fine.”   
  
Nathaniel pauses, with the sheath of parchment in his hands. “What?”   
  
“You may go.” She takes a piece of vellum from her desk, and scrutinizes it so she does not need to see his face.   
  
“Just that?” Nathaniel says.   
  
“Does your redemption need witnesses?” Arana snaps, and then she breathes out heavily. “Go, Warden. Bring my people back home.”


	4. Oghren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oghren sobers the Warden up.

She stays in her office all night drinking. Arana sits at her desk and sips slowly at her tumbler, enjoying the warp of the fire in the high-priced Serault glass. She is perhaps the only Dalish elf to ever have the privilege to drink from glassware normally preserved for the Divine and Her Holiness’ followers. They had been sent to the Divine as a bribe from the notoriously eccentric Marquis de Serault and waylaid by Leliana. Remembering that, Arana’s hand tightens around the glass and she contemplates smashing it, as she has smashed most of the relationships in her life. But she is the Warden-Commander of Ferelden and the Arlessa of Amaranthine, and it looks bad enough that she is drunk--she does not want to imagine what the servants would say, if they had to clean up glass worth several years of their salary. Instead of breaking it, she tops up her glass.   
  
She wakes up to the cool seabreeze whistling outside of her open office window, gulls crying out for bread. Blearily she pulls her head off her desk, cheek sticking slightly to the surface. Her head is heavy but the hangover has not begun to ring through her yet. Arana wrinkles her nose: coffee in a silver pot, embossed with the Warden crest, steams before her, with an equally beautiful silver cup.   
  
“Drink up,” Oghren says. “You’re gonna need it.”   
  
She fixes him with a red-eyed stare. Did she cry last night? She should have, if she didn’t. “Food?” she asks. They have done this before, the two of them, after they killed Branka, after Alistair left, and then Leliana.   
  
Oghren grunts. “Enough to tide you over,” he says. “Servant’ll be bringing it up, not me.”   
  
Ashara snorts. “Distinctions of rank must be preserved,” she says drily. “You want a cup? I imagine you brought your own.” A servant knocks on the door and brings in a hefty rasher of bacon, thickly-sliced, and three eggs fried in the grease, along with a shot glass of a mysterious green liquid. Ashara raises an eyebrow at Oghren.   
  
“Pickle juice,” Oghren grunts. “Works every time. Now get eating, we have to get to the city by noon.”   
  
“You don’t give me orders, Warden,” Ashara says, and laughs when Oghren rolls his eyes.   
  
“Fine. Enjoy your hangover. I’ll take the bacon.” Oghren feints towards the food, and Ashara waves him off. She eats, feeling her flesh gradually restore around her bones, and takes that shot of pickle juice. It is all surprisingly good.   
  
“No hair of the dog?” she says.   
  
“That’s a road you don’t want to go down,” Oghren says. “Trust me. Been trying to walk back up it for three months.” He grins at her. “Three months sober today. Sister Nightingale sent me a pretty little amulet to wear. Silver. Supposed to ward off poison.” He laughs. “‘Nuff poison I’ve thrown into myself. And out.”   
  
“You’ve been corresponding,” Arana says flatly. She sips her coffee. Leliana has been corresponding personally with Oghren, but has not bothered to send her a letter in months. She is furious--how can she find Oghren more pleasant to talk to than her? Did her letter anger her that much? She could have at least written her back, rather than turning her quill towards other people--to Oghren, of all people. Arana tolerates Oghren, and sometimes she even likes him--she has grown to respect him, after he joined the Wardens and apologized to Felsi, and she knows sobriety is not easy. Still, out of everyone left at Vigil’s Keep, one would think she rates higher than that fool. But Leliana has always liked a good redemption story, especially if she can prompt it. Arana scowls again.   
  
Oghren snorts at the look on her face. “Aye,” hen said. “And that’s why I’m taking you on a walk.”   
  
“Is this an intervention? I’m not a drunk, Oghren. Not like you--were.”   
  
“Andraste’s tits,” he says. “You’re not a drunk like me, no, and you haven’t puked away all your opportunities and shat on all your loved ones--”   
  
“You shat on Felsi?” Arana interrupts. Arana occasionally finds Oghren’s stories reassuring: it is always nice to know that someone has fucked up more than she ever can.   
  
Oghren pauses. “No!” He considers it. “Maybe. Her doorstep, more like it.”   
  
“And she answers your letters.” Arana leans back in her chairs and downs her coffee. Leliana doesn’t answer her letters, and Arana has never even drooled on her, let alone shat on her doorstep. “Sweet Sylaise, that woman has the patience of a Keeper.”   
  
Oghren snorts. “She doesn’t answer my letters, but she certainly cashes the notes I send her. You good? You drank your coffee? You gonna eat that? Let’s go.”   
  
They leave the keep quietly. The keep is bustling as usual, with the trainers and the recruits and the cooks and the cleaners running about. Arana catches sight of Ser Pounce watching from a young tree she planted, that passes as a Vhenadahl, and she stops a second. Ser Pounce cocks his head at her and mews. He looks very well-fed.   
  
“He hasn’t been hunting the Blighted rats, has she?” she asks anxiously. “I do not want Anders to hear we poisoned his cat.”   
  
Oghren says, “Ser Pounce took out a hurlock alpha. Think he’s immune to the Blight at this point, Commander.”   
  
Ser Pounce lets out a meow, and disappears into the leaves. Arana hopes he has not been pissing on the tree.   
  
They move off the main road to avoid listeners, and because Arana deeply craves the woods, the feel of the living earth under her soles, and the whisper of the lost that press against the almost sheer Veil, trying to get their stories heard. They trudge along in silence for the first hour. Oghren hums to himself. He is not a particularly good singer, Arana well knows, but she enjoys having company. They meander, and Arana loses herself in the cool gray copse that acts as a natural barrier between Vigil’s Keep and anyone avoiding the King’s Road.   
  
When they are far from Vigil’s Keep but still an hour from Amaranthine City, Oghren finally speaks up. “You been getting a lot of mail lately.”   
  
“Yes,” Arana says. “I have certainly been filing my dispatches.”   
  
Oghren looks at her sideways. “Dispatches,” Oghren says. “From ol’ King Alistair, from that warden from Clan Lavellan, maybe even one or two from Tabris. But nothing from Surana, or Brosca, or Zevran, or Leliana even. Except that one, right? From the batch that came in before Anders left.”   
  
“Are you reading my mail?” Arana says, annoyed. Her hand reaches for her sword handle. “Fen’Harel take you, dwarf, those letters contain sensitive information, and you are enough of a drunk--”   
  
Oghren raises both hands. “Three months sober,” he emphasizes. “Since Anders left. Ser. Though I guess I’ll always be a drunk, I’ll be a  _ dry _ drunk for sure. And no--I file your mail. Quartermaster told me to make myself useful, and it keeps me from going to the tavern for lunch.” Arana deflates. She crosses her arms instead, and looks up at the bald trees reaching for the gray sky. It does not snow in Amaranthine, even in winter. She hopes it does not rain. Oghren continues, “Struck me as weird, it did. That you’d only get official business, but Tabris was writing Velanna and Nathaniel, Leliana was checking in with me every two weeks, Alistair even sent me some cheese. ‘Twas moldy to be sure, but I think he did that on purpose.”   
  
“Some Orlesian cheeses are supposed to be moldy,” Arana says, amused despite herself. “Leliana told me.”   
  
Oghren shot her a look. “Didn’t it strike you as weird that Leliana was writing me but not you? And I didn’t want to intrude on whatever your lover’s spat was, I know how you get.” Arana opened her mouth to protest, but Oghren barreled on, “So I did some investigating. And guess what I found out? The courier who takes letters from the crossroads, and sends them up the coast? Well, her husband’s got an Orlesian last name, and his cousin works in the Divine’s scriptorium.” His moustache twitches as he beams up at her triumphantly. “The Divine’s been stealing your mail, lass. She’s trying to fuck you and Leliana up.” He spreads his arms out, as if he is expecting applause.   
  
“You took me out here to tell me this?” Arana says incredulously. “You couldn’t have told me this in front of my fire?” As she says that, she feels a cold drop hit her forehead. She wipes it away, crestfallen. It begins to rain. She glares down at him.   
  
Oghren says cheerfully, “Better get to Amaranthine quick. Time to sprint!”   
  
They reach the city gates, mudsplattered, soaked, and sour. Arana bitches the whole way back onto the King’s Road and through the gates. It is the most she has spoken since Velanna left, and her throat gets sore. “And now!” she exclaims, as Oghren shepherds her towards a relatively nice inn near the alienage, “now my throat hurts! I will get a cold, and I will be bedridden, and someone else will need to find a polite way to tell the Chantry they have no right to censor us for recruiting whomever wanted to flee Kinloch Hold, while simultaneously keeping them from scrutinizing  _ too heavily _ whatever Blighted nugshit Weisshaupt is up to--you know Morrigan has been sighted in Serault, bearing a writ from the Divine? And somehow it’s my fault.” She has not spoken this much, or so openly, since Surana last visited, and though she knows it is perhaps unwise to confide this all in Oghren of all people, she cannot stop the torrent of words. “And, and, I need to apologize to my clan, and--”   
  
In the corner of the steaming inn, a woman sits, tuning a lute. Arana stops dead. Leliana looks up and smiles. “My love,” she says. “My heart.”


End file.
